‘Battleship’ is no ‘Titanic’

OK, if you haven’t gotten around to seeing “Battleship,” the greatest action flick since Charles Foster Kane burned down Xanadu, maybe you need some encouragement. That’s why I’m providing a link to my Spokane Public Radio review. And for those who are more literate-minded, I’ve included the hard copy below.

Enjoy.

Memo : To Peter Berg, producer/director of “Battleship.” From : Your biggest fan.

Hey, Pete, just saw your latest summer-movie blockbuster “Battleship” and, boy, am I excited. Not just because your film is the greatest thing since deep-fried Milk Duds but because I haven’t had this much fun in, oh, it must be a couple of weeks or so.

Love the concept of making a whole movie from a board game. I mean, one thing I really admire is your willingness to come up with an original plot. You haven’t adapted some comic book story line, made the 17 ^th sequel in an ongoing series or remade a film favorite with a new star and an abiding faith that we won’t recognize any residual similarities (are you listening, “Spider-Man ”?). No you came up with a completely new and original idea. Involving aliens. And the U.S. Navy. And a showdown that results in the aliens getting a nasty surprise in just how enduring these vastly underequipped Earthlings can be. Kudos, dude.

Not that plot matters, of course. Plot, nor even good sense, makes little difference to any real fan of summer-action flicks, not as long as the screen is full of big explosions and lots of debris comes flying at us. Which, of course, allows you to shoot two different versions – one in 3-D – so that you can charge both exorbitant AND ultra-exorbitant ticket prices. For the same movie. Pretty darn smart, I’d say.

And while you don’t have any shapely superheroes such as Storm or Mystique filling out their costumes the way Halle Berry and Rebecca Romijn can, it’s to your credit that you hired Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Brooklyn Decke r as eye-candy. You should have put her in a bikini, of course, and the 14-year-old in me will remain disappointed at not getting to see a bikinied Decker running down a beach, Baywatch style, with that alien army in hot pursuit. All in glorious slo-mo. Think Bo Derek in “10.” And, yeah, I like the fact that you cast Rihanna, and had the good sense to put an array of automatic weapons in her hands. But couldn’t you have put her in a bikini, too? Look, Pete. Think Blu-ray. Think Director’s cut. Just saying.

The best touch, though, was in casting a bunch of World War II and Korean veterans as the guys who make the climactic difference. They saved the world for real some seven decades ago, so why not now, if only on the big screen? And pairing them with a veteran from this era, one with prosthetic limbs? Some might call this a kind of product placement, even a kind of pandering to Greatest Generation sentimentality. I call it pure genius.

So, look, Pete. I know some critics have been hard on you. Saying you made a movie that’s filled mostly with actors who learned their trade at modeling school. That you rely on computer graphics the way an obsessive hand-washer does a bar of soap. That you play to the lowest-common-denominator of film-fan expectations fully confident that no one will notice. Don’t believe them. You’re a bona-fide auteur, pal, representing the future of film.

Excuse me, I need to find a hanky. But I’m not sad. These are tears of joy, man. Of pure joy.